PARATHYROID GLANDS 641 



animals, some of which were kept on a diet of constant composition, others 

 of which were starved, and (2) the excretion of calcium and magnesium 

 in animals kept for a time on a diet of constant composition, after which 

 a fasting period was instituted, during which the parathyroid glands 

 were removed. Cooke asserted that the results of these experiments do not 

 support the views of MacCallum and Voegtlin on the control of calcium 

 metabolism by the parathyroid glands, and hinted that the function of the 

 parathyroideal secretion is to oxidize certain of the intermediary products 

 of protein catabolism ; should the oxidation fail to occur, owing to para- 

 thyroid insufficiency, there is an accumulation of acid products that com- 

 bine with ammonia and with other bases (calcium, magnesium), increas- 

 ing the content of the urinary excretion in these kations. Cooke found that 

 calcium, intramuscularly injected in tetany, was, in one instance, excreted 

 in the feces rather than in the urine. 



Haskins and Gerstenberger 1911) studied the calcium metabolism 

 in a female negro infant, aged 14 months, in which they saw no benefit 

 .from dietetic treatment, or from the administration of calcium lactate 

 or of desiccated ox parathyroid. They placed this child on a constant diet 

 of milk and water for two months, during which time the body weight con- 

 tinued unchanged. During the metajbolism experiment the child was kept 

 on a Bradford frame. Though in normal children there is a calcium 

 retention (more on a diet of breast milk than on a diet of cow's milk), they 

 found in the tetany child a diminution of calcium retention. Schwarz 

 and Bass 1 (19 12) found no diminution of calcium retention in their case 

 of infantile tetany, though they admitted that the calcium retention in- 

 creased in their patient as the tetany disappeared, thus confirming an 

 earlier observation by Cybulski, who in a seven months old child had 

 found a far less marked calcium retention during attacks of tetany than at 

 times when the infant was free from tetany symptoms. 



MacCallum and Voegtlin (1913) found that, if, in experimental 

 tetany, the animal be bled and the blood be replaced by an isotonic solution 

 free from calcium, the tetany ceases and the excitability of the motor nerves 

 is lowered, probably owing, they thought, to a general disturbance of the. 

 nutrition of the nervous system. The rapid introduction of oxalate-like 

 substances into the circulation caused no change in the excitability of the 

 nerves. They analyzed the blood in the tetany animal and found a rela- 

 tive poverty in calcium, as contrasted with control blood from a normal 

 animal, but the administration of extracts of parathyroid glands did not in- 

 crease the calcium content of the blood. Moreover, in partial parathy- 

 roidectomy, if the parathyroid insufficiency were not great enough to pro- 

 duce tetany, the calcium content of the blood remained within normal 

 limits. Nevertheless, these authors maintained that the theory that tetany 

 is dependent upon a disturbance of the calcium content of the blood is 

 supported by stronger evidence than any other idea thus far advanced ; 



